My travel agency, Gateway Express, sells a lot of cruise vacations - and, I personally, "heart" cruising. BUT! Although the value of cruise vacations is awesome, the pricing policies are very dishonest.
Gateway Express gets "sale bulletins" almost hourly pitching the unbelievable deals. Just taking one example, I just saw a number of 7-night Caribbean sailings through the winter where the "advertised" price for an Oceanview cabin ranges from $699 to $749 per person. Good deal, eh?
Well, the whole industry conveniently excludes taxes and port usage costs from their advertised prices. Those items can add up to almost as much as the advertised price. So, your $749 cruise is really $1,294.
For comparison, suppose the airlines (who have their own set of issues) deducted all their airport usage costs and the myriad of taxes they must pay from the published fares. The $478 fare includes all this although the fine print on your ticket does break out the taxes. So you are well aware that the actual fare on that $478 was $392 and the rest was tax. But, suppose they excluded all their airport usage costs and advertised an airfare of $310.
So, if they advertised like the cruise industry does, you would see a fare of $310 when the actual price of your ticket will be $478. Totally dishonest.
Don't get me wrong... $1,294 for the afore-mentioned cruise is a terrific value. I just wish they could be honest about it!
Cheers,
Dick
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